It’s no secret that Search Engine marketing can drive significant amounts of very qualified traffic to a web site ? as 85% of Internet users utilize search engines to find/research for goods and services. The problem for many companies is the difficulty they face sifting through conflicting information and hyperbole! Here is my top five list of myths that need to be run to ground.Big Picture Myth One ? Search engine ranking leads are not as good as those which originate from other forms of traditional marketing (print, direct mail, PR, etc.) ? this is absolute hogwash, the truth is many agencies don’t have a clue about s/e ranking, so they push their clients to ignore this form of advertising. They simply don’t want to recommend anything they don’t understand and/or utilize an interactive marketing vehicle that requires a blend of very specialized technology and processes.
We’ve in fact found just the opposite when we’ve analyzed s/e traffic versus other types of leads for our clients; i.e. search engine traffic can be much better, as it is comprised of individuals who are actively seeking info, not just people whose curiosity has been piqued by an eye-catching publication ad or press release. And, when we’ve analyzed the data by tracking leads via a landing page (on a web site) we’ve discovered that CPL (cost per lead) numbers can be much lower for s/e ranking than other more traditional marketing methods.
Big Picture Myth Two ? Effective s/e marketing can be done in house ? this is rarely the case, the sheer complexity and online competition (digital warfare!) for rankings makes this extremely difficult for most companies. Based upon our analysis over 73% of corporate accounts don’t understand the basic fundamentals; i.e. how to properly use keywords, meta tags and titles and worse, don’t submit their web sites to top tier Directories (Yahoo, LookSmart, OPD) and the hundreds of second tier directories.
Most companies delegate the s/e submissions to the webmaster or web site development staff and they just don’t have the time to understand the daunting complexities required to generate page 1-3 rankings - or to stay abreast of the shifting submissions and ranking criteria standards, as modified monthly by top tier search engines. And, in many companies the s/e ranking is added to the over worked webmaster’s tasks purely as an afterthought ? as opposed to being addressed formally by the marketing department, with dedicated personnel and a budget.
Big Picture Myth Three ? off the shelf software that submits a site to thousands of web sites and presents snazzy reports can do it all. This is so inaccurate and nothing can be further from the truth ? it takes a tremendous amount of labor and time to identify keyword sets (not just words), optimize the content for these keywords, submit the pages while obeying the rules of the road and then continually analyzing rankings and tweaking to maintain and drive rankings (web site visibility).
Software can certainly help to automate some facets of the process and be used for back end analysis ? but you can’t expect any application to make the job easy, there is too much inherent complexity in the processes. And, competition for keyword sets is fierce ? as there are an estimated 5-10M registered domains (the numbers vary widely) with 60K new domains being registered every day.
Big Picture Myths Four and Five ? Any page listing will help to drive traffic to a web site ? this is another misconception. If you are aren’t achieving page 1-3 rankings then your wasting a great deal of time and resources ? most people never drill down below these pages. Another common mistake is trying to achieve s/e rankings for a specific URL or product ? if people know the name of a company or product they will find your web site easily, it’s a waste of resources to optimize for these specialized terms in 80% of most cases.
About The Author
Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com
Written by SEO Tipster on June 5th, 2007 with no comments.
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Every webmaster would like to see his/her website to be the number 1 search result returned in search engines. A number 1 spot in Google pretty much guarantees loads of traffic to a website which can then materialize in high revenue for the website owner.
To reach that number 1 spot search engine optimization (SEO) is the tool webmasters have to use in almost every case. Several books have been written covering search engine optimization. Hundreds of websites cover the topic and give loads of advice. There is so much information about this topic - it’s almost impossible to digest. Webmasters have all they need available at their hands at any time and also share the knowledge. Google (as an example) changes the rules all the time and missing out on these things can mean that a website drops down to the bottom of the search results delivered on any given search. The hunt for the best search engine optimization results is on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
As with anything there will always be people who go a step too far. Search Engine Optimization is no exception. You’ve got the Black Hats who do use every legal or illegal trick to increase their website’s search engine ranking and you have the so called White Hats who play by the rules and only use legitimate SEO tools and tricks. And then you have people who just over-do it. They build their websites completely optimized for the search engines but seem to forget about the user in the end. These websites are stuffed with keywords and phrases all over. Navigation and presentation of content is optimized for the search engine but they seem to completely forget about the human factor. Yes, driving traffic to the website from search engines is great. But what if the site is difficult to navigate for the visitor because it is optimized for a search engine and not for usability? A website not meeting the needs of humans is set up to fail.
Having the number 1 spot in a search engine will not materialize in higher profits and revenue if the site does not meet basics requirements for humans to a) navigate the site properly and b) to be able discover what they are looking for in an easy way. Articles stuffed with the same keywords over and over again are hard to read and the information the user is looking for is difficult to extract. Links to sub-pages covered under keywords over and over again will make it difficult to even get to the information the user is looking for. The user experience will be disappointing and will lead to the user moving on to other sites that are able to deliver information in an appropriate way. There are other webmasters who are able to achieve high search engine rankings and still offer satisfying experiences for users on their websites?
So, if you are a webmaster - will you optimize your websites for search engines or for the user?
About the Author
Christoph Puetz is a successful entrepreneur and international book author. Examples of his search engine optimization work can be found at Web Hosting Tutorials, Highlands Ranch and at Credit Repair.
The article can be published by anyone as long as the resource box (About the Author) is posted on the website including the links. These links must be clickable.
Written by SEO Tipster on June 4th, 2007 with no comments.
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When exploring good keyword choices there are several steps one must consider. The most important step is putting your self in the shoes of the type of customer you want to target. Just make a list of the keywords or phrases you think that customer would enter into a search engine or directory when searching for your company or site. A good tool is WordTracker.com which will help you brainstorm different key phrases. Ask friends and associates which words they would use to search for your site on the internet, if they were looking for a site similar to yours.Brands -
If a brand applies, include more specific brand names that are applicable to your site or type of business. If you offer a service, then try to offer service brand names when ever possible. Legally, you should put a registered trademark (? or trademark (?) symbol after the names when ever mentioning trademarked names on the page.
Concepts -
Include concept type keywords. An example would be “Athletic Gear” Since this would be what a sports company might be selling.
Company Names -
If your site offers a product from a well known company with brand recognition, include that company name in your keyword. Rid on the popularity of that company, why not? You’re selling their product, correct? If that company has a good reputation and brand loyalty then this would only help in adding consumer confidence in your site even more.
Quality -
Your keywords may only bring up poor quality type web sites that your core audience may have no interest in anyway. Try to focus on words that will bring in quality visitors to your site who will stay long enough to search your site for information regarding your product or service. Unqualified visits are not only a waste of your visitor’s time but also a waste of your time. You wouldn’t want to be barraged with unqualified emails regarding your product if it’s not what your site is trying to sell.
Your Company Name
Unless your company has a well known brand name such as Nike or Ford Motors, it’s generally less important to emphasize the company name as a keyword. A go around for this is to create an “About Us” page that focuses on optimizing your company name several times as the keyword on that page. This way if someone searches for your company name it would still come up as a relevant search result.
Target Phrases not Words -
With over a billion pages on the web and millions added each day, it’s virtually impossible to achieve to rankings for a common words such as “electronics”, “web”, “food” etc. Instead, try to focus on target phrases of between two and four words in length.
Test Your Keywords -
Try to see how many web sites match your keywords or phrases before and after you launch your web site. Obviously the few matches found the easier it will be to obtain high rankings. With a proper strategy your site could be one near the top of that search. There may be phrases that are much easier to achieve a good ranking on than more common words or phrases. Some finding those obscure phrases and using this strategy can gain your site unexpected traffic.
Case Sensitivity -
If a user types in the word “Web,” many engines will search for “Web” with an uppercase “W” only. If your page has only “Web” in lowercase “w” in it, it won’t be found. On the other hand, if a user searches for “web” many engines will search for it in lowercase and uppercase forms. There fore it helps to have some of your keywords in uppercase or starting with an uppercase letter if the user should search that way. The easiest way to do this is in the title of the page, in Meta tags and at the beginning of sentences. Some engines are not case sensitive like Google at this time. The easiest way to test this is to input your keyword or phrase into different search engines and see if the exact same search results come up.
Bad Spelling -
Some times bad spelling is a good thing. Search for obvious spelling errors and grammatical mistakes people are likely to make and then incorporate them into your pages to pick up unexpected traffic. Also, product names can have a multitude of variations so focus on those too. For example, Ford may have “Ford Motor,” “Ford Vehicles,” “Ford Auto,” or “Ford Cars” etc.
Implement these search engine optimization strategies and you will boost your traffic with higher rankings
About The Author
Brian Daniels is the Founder of XcelWeb.com. His latest eBook, “Ultimate Internet Marketing” is available at http://www.xcelweb.com for free
sales@xcelweb.com
Written by SEO Tipster on May 15th, 2007 with no comments.
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Achieving a top ranking position in Google is every webmasters dream. Unfortunately very few ever make it high enough for it to make a big difference on their traffic volume. If you are one of the few to make it onto the Top 10 list, you have probably found out that your listing doesn’t always stay on top. So, besides all the other advice online, it is also extremely important to under stand your competition, and to properly use their key words to your advantage. This article will be part one of a two part series. Below we will look at GoogleRankings.com and how this useful tool will help you in your quest to achieve a top listing within Google. Just as an addendum, we use these tools on a daily basis to achieve top 10 listings for our web properties.GoogleRankings.com is an incredible tool that every webmaster should consult. Now, because Google rankings fluctuate multiple times a day, the site is sometimes a couple hours delayed, however it provides a great resource in quickly finding how your competitors stack up against your website. Not only that but you can use different key words in conjunction with a website to see how they rank. Incredibly useful in determining which key words should be used in your content and advertising.
As an example, if you were to decide on using a specific keyword phrase. Type in that key word into GoogleRankings.com, along with your competitor’s website, and you will see how they rank in regards to that specific phrase and/or word in Google. This will allow you to specifically pinpoint which phrases and/or keywords your competitors rank low in, which you will in turn begin to focus your attention on.
Once you have figured out which key words your competition ranks low in, you are well on your way in implementing specific strategies in achieving a Top 10 ranking in Google. Part 2 will discuss how to become even more specific in targeting your keywords, and virtually ensuring a top 10 listing.
Darren H. currently owns and is involved with various online marketing and management companies. He is the author of “How to get Listed in Google within 72 Hours.” and prides himself on helping many individuals and business customers achieve top 10 rankings within Google in an extremely short time frame. To learn more and get started today please visit: http://www.marketingoutlet.com/google_article.htm
Written by SEO Tipster on April 26th, 2007 with no comments.
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Let me preface this report by citing advertisers in 2004 have spent 4 Billion dollars on search engine marketing according to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO).Website marketers cited Search engine positioning was the top method to drive traffic to their sites (66%), followed by email marketing (54%). Source: Direct Marketing Association. Accordingly, the most cost effective way to market your web site online is to obtain several top 10-search engine rankings in the major search engines for your keywords.
According to a recent Jupiter Research Survey, searching on the search engines is one of the main uses of the Internet among 79% of users. Source: September 2002 Jupiter Research Survey. So that being the case, whatever your promoting you’ll want to make sure it can be found on the first page of the search engines results page.
The reason is numerically simple. An Iprospect Survey in 2002 reported that 78% of web users abandon their search if the first 3 pages don’t provide an answer to their question, and 28% don’t scroll past the 2nd page of results. Source: Media Post article reporting results of Spring 2002 IProspect survey.
Combine those facts with the Internets explosive growth rate of 1.8 Million people worldwide going online every week for the very first time, Source: Official Guide To Internet Promotion and you can soon appreciate what a top 10 ranking can mean to you. Google receives approximately 39.4% of all search engine traffic. Yahoo receives approximately 30.4%. They’re simply the largest search engines being utilized online today.
Bringing up the rear is MSN at 29.6%, and AOL 15.5% then Ask Jeeves with 8.5%. Source: Nielsen//NetRatings January 2004
How much traffic is that? Well, Google and its partner sites were reporting a whopping 250 million searches a day in February 2003.
Overture and its partners were reporting over 167 million searches per day. Inktomi reported 80 million followed by LookSmart with 45 million per day.
FindWhat reported 33 million while Ask Jeeves reported 20 million, Alta Vista reported 18 million and finally Fast reported 12 Million searches per day. Source: Searchenginewatch.com 2004.
With all said, you can easily see how your search engine rankings are directly proportional to the traffic your web site receives, and your site traffic is directly related to your potential to profit online.
Oh, and in case your wondering how much money is spent online; a recent Forrester Research Report indicated that online spending reached $95,700,000,000 million in 2003!
That’s a cool 95.7 billion dollars. Projected online spending is estimated to grow to $229 billion in 2008! A whopping 139% increase in online spending! Source: Forrester Research
Now with these facts in mind I’m confident you can clearly see what a top 10-search engine ranking can mean for your bottom line. Although it does leave a question unanswered in my mind, what has a higher ROI? organic search engine optimization or paid search?
According to SEMPO’s key analysis, the U.S. & Canadian SEM Industry Size Estimate by tactic in 2004, organic SEO accounted for 12% of the market share or $492,057,200 while Paid Placement accounted for $3,341,878,176 or 81.8%.
Interestingly, 9 out of 10 respondents are actively engaged in organic SEM marketing programs accounting for 89% of the respondent advertisers. This trend can be contributed to the average cost of popular keywords continuing to escalate.
If the escalation continues to rise it could make paid search engine advertising exponentially cost prohibitive for all but the largest advertisers? the 900lb gorillas!
Simply put, ROI is outpacing inflation: SEMPO’s key analysis indicates advertisers could afford to pay on average 33% more for their keywords and remain profitable, while they say prices have gone up 26% on average in the last 12 months. That’s leaves a 7% advertising margin to maintain current profits for 2005!
SEMPO’s data also noted that advertisers will get smarter about managing their paid placement programs before they cut back on spending.
This is also consistent with a report released by Nielsen/NetRatings indicating that the growing demand for search engine advertising is outstripping the supply of currently available advertising space.
These findings seem to indicate the inventory of keywords is approaching a critical demand problem however; most advertisers felt they still have some degree of price flexibility in their paid placement programs before they will reach the threshold of diminishing returns.
Is there any wonder why organic search engine positioning has gained popularity for online marketers in 2004? Could it be higher (ROI) return on investments?
SEMPO also cites that 43% of advertiser respondents have shifted their budgets away from other marketing programs for Organic SEO.
So what does it all mean? Let the numbers speak for themselves.
Organic SEO is undeniably gaining favor over the lower ROI paid advertising. This is evidenced by virtue of the fact that paid advertising is becoming less profitable.
Although paid advertising will continue to hold a large portion of the market share, as paid advertising returns diminish and keyword costs soar my early 2005 forecast is for the materialization of a progressive organic SEO market trend to facilitate the need for advertising space.
Copyright 2005 Lawrence Deon
Lawrence Deon is a Search Engine Optimization/Marketing Consultant, Author and Developer of the popular search engine optimization and marketing model Ranking Your Way To The Bank. http://www.rankingyourwaytothebank.com
Written by SEO Tipster on April 25th, 2007 with no comments.
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This is the first of a series of articles about a subject so many people want to learn; the un-sizzled truth of search engines. What do you really know about how a web site is placed? Are you being told the truth? Not only will these articles enlighten you, but along the way, I will create a new web site and in the next 2 months we will watch where it lands!
You will learn about the tricks, and tools I use. If I have an affiliation with any of the companies I recommend, I will let you know. I’m going to start at the very beginning. Therefore, I will assume you have little or no knowledge of how web pages get to the top of the search engines.
There is a reason that large web site companies have names like eBay, Google, and Yahoo! These names are unique, limited in characters, easy to spell, easy to say and the biggest reason ? they are easy to REMEMBER! I also noticed that they are sounds my toddler makes! I’m not a psychologist, so I won’t go there, but you get my point. I’m not saying that your web site name should be googoogaga.com, but the more unique the name, the less chance of duplication by others. Before you consider purchasing a web name, first check it out! Oh by the way, the name googoogaga.com is already taken.
You think you have a great name for a web site? Go to the following search engine addresses and type in the name. Remember people use spaces if they type in more than one word. This is why your site name should be short! Think of compound words or terms used together, like “cash stash.”
http://www.google.com
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.altavista.com
http://www.msn.com
http://www.aol.com (search is at the very bottom of their page)
Many people purchase a web name that matches their birth name, as in www.stanleygeorge.com. Just look in your local phone book and see how many others have your name. Why would you think your name would be unique in an entire world of people? Okay, Okay, don’t fret just yet, even if you did use your name as a web name. You will learn how to remedy that situation in this article.
When picking a name for your web site, you want to think of the following items.
Describes what you do
Is easy to spell
Is easy to remember
Has a word or words that people will use in a search
Or is Unique enough to create curiosity
That’s the problem with the web names today. Most items people type in a search engine is already used. So I take a different approach to web names. If unable to get a “search term” for a name, then I go for unique names. My new web site for this article is http://www.popcornfart.com. Okay, does that strike a curiosity? Where did I get the name? Actually, it was a saying from my grandfather. Yes, I did check the web, and very few items came up with that verbiage. Now for the lesson in the name game!
You can purchase a name without a web site. Read that again. You can buy just a name! Oh, no one told you that? Here’s the best part! You can redirect that name to an existing web site, to a free web site, or even to a page on a web site. That’s right! You can pick any name and have it redirected. Think of it, as call forwarding! If your current name is not the most advantageous to the search engines, or is too long, you can buy a better name, and have it automatically pull up your web site. Just like call forwarding your phone, only your new web site address is seen online.
I’m not affiliated with this company, but I’ve been working with them for over 5 years. They only sell names, and ways to redirect them. When you purchase a name from them, you also get redirection e-mail for free. I’ll explain more about redirection e-mail in the part II of this article. For now, check out, http://www.namesecure.com.
Using their home page, you will be able to type in a web name you want to purchase. You will be surprised that so many of the names are already taken. Get creative and think of something unique. Take your time!
You must open an account with Namesecure which includes a user name and password. I found it easier to first setup the account, then purchase the name. Their web site can be confusing to new users, so go slow. Don’t go crazy and purchase names you will not use. I know it is tempting, because names on this site are reasonably priced. Don’t purchase extra stuff! With the name, you automatically get e-mail forwarding. Buy the name for only 2 years, as the web changes quickly.
The order is usually processed in about two days, sometimes in 15 minutes. The name will then appear in your account. Sign back into your account, then click on the word “modify/update” next to your name. A new page appears and on the third tab below your new name you will see “Web Settings.” That is where you tell the new name to redirect to your existing web site. The amount of time to redirect also varies. I’ve had some names redirect in 10 minutes, others took 8 hours.
So now you know, multiple names that redirect appear as multiple web sites. Don’t miss Part II of this article ? online soon!
Copyright by Gina Novelle at http://www.thirdpocket.com
About The Author
Gina Novelle is a published free lance writer! She writes “How-To” articles, press releases, and other informational articles. She works with clients that want to obtain a web presence, and is available to write for you. Her Background can be found at http://www.thirdpocket.com/wall.htm, and mailto:gina@exclusivemarkets.net.
Written by SEO Tipster on March 29th, 2007 with no comments.
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Webmasters can spend most of their waking hours doing everything they can to raise their Google PageRank. It is common knowledge that PageRank, which is largely based upon the number and quality of backlinks a webpage has, is an important factor in how well a particular webpage ranks within the Google search results. Since webmasters spend so much of their time worrying about PageRank, an important question is: how important is PageRank, really?Many webmasters will tell you from experience that other factors besides PageRank, such as keyword density and placement, have recently taken a larger role in website ranking. No one will argue that PageRank has become irrelevant, but there is significant evidence to suggest that PageRank is not quite as important of a factor in website ranking as it once was.
To illustrate this point, I utilized a very useful tool you can find at prlookup.com. The tool returns regular Google query results with one interesting addition ? they also give the pagerank for every webpage. Thus, you can type in any word or phrase and see the pagerank of those webpages that rank well (or not so well) for that keyword. Looking at the results, you probably notice something almost immediately. Some sites with low PRs do surprisingly well in the results, while some higher PR sites do quite poorly. Some of this difference can be contributed to sheer content ? that is, how many times, and in what manner, the keywords you entered actually show up on the webpage. Google takes a close look at keyword usage and density in determining ranking. However, some pages clearly have very close keyword densities, yet in some cases the page with the lower pagerank will somehow still receive a better ranking.
Let us take a more quantitative look at this. Taking 20 of the most popular keywords from rankpulse.com (for this particular day), and entering them in prlookup.com, it is possible to get a better feel for the importance of pagerank. Looking at the first five results only, I wanted to see how many followed in order of highest PR to lowest PR. Surely, out of the results for 20 keywords, a good portion of them will display such an order, right? I have listed the number of webpage results that appeared in correct PageRank order for each keyword (i.e. 5 would indicate that 5 out of 5 results were in order of highest to lowest pagerank). You can see the table with results at Google Advisor.
Although limited by sample size, the results indicated that PageRank is not an overwhelmingly dominant component of website ranking on Google. If it were, the average of correct PageRank order for these keywords really should be somewhere around 4 to 5 (the real average was about 2.15). Thus, other factors including keyword density in webpage content, title, and even the URL, play a significant role in webpage ranking. I want to mention that, while looking over these results, I noticed that about 4-5 of these keywords came up with at least one webpage within the first 10 results (first page on Google) that had absolutely no PageRank at all (PR 0). In addition, a couple keywords came up with results with exactly reverse-order PageRanks ? that is, the first result at the lowest PR and the fifth result had the highest (for example, PR8, 7, 6, 6, 5 or something similar).
So what does this all mean for the average webmaster concerned with SEO? The first lesson is that keywords and other non-PageRank factors can be absolutely crucial. They can put a PR6 site above a PR8 site (if you don’t believe me just use the tool I mentioned above). Does this mean that website owners should not worry about links? Not at all. It’s just that all the time people spend on exchanging and acquiring links for the sole purpose of increasing PageRank may be better spent developing website content and keyword strategies instead.
As far as keywords are concerned, we discovered that having keywords in the website title and URL can help a site rank much more competitively. Good content tends to have the fortunate effect of both increasing your one-way in-bound links (people like to link to sites they find interesting, thoughtful, informative, or helpful), thereby improving your PageRank, while at the same time producing keyword rich webpages good for both human viewers and search engine spiders.
The take home message here is that PageRank is important, but it certainly is not worth obsessing over; there are many other factors involved in website ranking that should be given nearly equal consideration. In addition, simply building a good website is the best thing you can do to attract visitors, even without a great PageRank. PageRank, however, will likely follow ? consider it a welcomed byproduct of your hard work.
Bradley James is Webmaster of GoogleAdvisor.org, an informational site providing free information to casual searchers and Webmasters about the Google search engine.
Written by SEO Tipster on March 25th, 2007 with no comments.
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We all, meaning us webmasters want to have the best and top-rated website. But how do we get there? We start linking and submitting. If you are like me though, you don’t want to pay someone to do this. So, you so it yourself. This article shows a few tips and tricks on how to do that, mostly on how to get indexed by search engines.
The best way to get indexed is probably not through the fast submission services. For me the best results have been achieved by going directly to the “add URL” site. This may be more tedious but it works. Go to sites such as http://google.com/addurl/ and Google will crawl your site.
Also, trying to get one-way links will help. If you have no links to your site, chances are your site could be skipped or not seen. Many and I mean a ton of sites will offer to exchange link with you (you display their link and they diplay yours.) These links don’t hold much weight with search engines.
You see, the crawler can detect reciprocal links and they dont’t mean as much as one-way links. Sadly, it is very hard to get the prized one-way links. The best way is to have good content and diplay a “link to me” button. If a person likes your site they might just link to you.
Besides that try submitting to Dmoz.org and the Yahoo! Directory. Google says your site will be hard to miss if it is in these two directories. I hope these tips and helpful hints really are helpful.
Jason Lutterloh is a web designer, webmaster, and computer enthusiast. To visit the authors’ site please go to http://www.compjason.com
Written by SEO Tipster on March 25th, 2007 with no comments.
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>Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become one of the biggest internet buzz-words recently. Everyone is talking about it. These days it seems there’s an “expert” around every corner promising all kinds of wonderful things to online business owners. Beware! If you are interested in building a long term successful online business, there are few things you should know when it comes to search engine optimization.Before we move too far along we need to understand a little about the economics of search engines. This will give us a better understanding of why they behave the way they do and why common Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices will continue to provide diminishing returns, eventually into obscurity.
Contrary to a very common belief, internet users searching the web are not the search engine’s customers. Advertiser’s are. Just follow the trail of money and you’ll see what I mean. Internet users are the “product” that the search engines “deliver” to advertisers. Specifically they are selling highly targeted traffic to their advertising clients. When a user types in search criteria, they are expressing their desire for information (or products) related to those search terms. By delivering ads that are directly relevant to the search results, search engines are in a unique position to capitalize on the concept of targeted traffic. For advertisers, search engine users are a gold mine of pre-qualified potential customers and they are quite happy to pay a premium to get their products in front of them.
So now that that’s out of the way, how do search engines (SEs) compete with each other for those advertising dollars? The answer is two-fold and closely resembles the way any marketer goes about increasing sales. The first is obviously to get more traffic to the search engine. The second is to increase the conversion rate of that traffic. In other words the percentage of traffic that results in sales for the advertising clients. So if you own a search engine how do you accomplish these two things? The answer lies in delivering the best search results for any given search criteria. The more relevant the results that a search engine can deliver consistently, the more people will rely on it. This translates into more overall traffic and better targeting of ads to that traffic. Simple in concept… very complex in practice!
A little history lesson
In the beginning, search engines employed some rather primitive methods of determining a web page’s relevance to a search query. These methods proved to be quite simple to reverse engineer and as a result “Search Engine Optimizers” (SEOers) where able to use techniques to manipulate the search results in their favor. This abuse, often referred to as SE spam undermined the search engine’s main commodity, the quality and relevancy of it’s contextual search results. To combat the problem, the SEs developed increasingly complex mathematical algorithms to evaluate pages for possible inclusion in search engine result pages (SERPs). In addition to the traditional “on-page” information that was so easy to manipulate, many SEs began looking at a multitude of “off-page” criteria and giving them an increasing amount of weight in their overall equations.
On-page vs. off-page criteria
There are many different items that a SE looks at “on-page” when it evaluates it. The page’s title, how many occurrences of a searched word or phrase (keywords and key phrases) are on the page and their proximity to one other, what the headings on the page describe, etc. all come into play. The chief disadvantage of using only this information (aside from the ease of which it can be manipulated by clever SEOers), is that it tells nothing about the quality of the information on the page. Until the day comes (and it is coming) when search technology and computing power are sufficient to take advantage of “artificial intelligence” to make sound judgements about the quality of a page by evaluating the page alone, SEs will continue to rely heavily on “off-page” criteria. The reason for this is simple. Nothing compares to human intelligence when judging a page’s importance. Computers running even the most complex algorithms simply can’t do it.
So instead, the bright people who develop search engine technology have realized that by tracking how humans behave and interact with a web page, they can get a fairly good idea of how humans rate that page and the quality of it’s information. This is the “off-page” criteria that we are talking about. There are hundreds if not thousands of different things that are tracked and evaluated “off-page”. We know, or at least can make some pretty educated guesses as to what some of these things are. For instance, it is obvious from the collective experiences of many web professionals that SEs keep track of how many links come into a site from pages on other sites with high quality, relevant information. A link from such a source tells the SE that the information on the site that is being linked to is likely to be credible and of high quality as well. A human with related quality information on their site did link to it after all. It’s also widely accepted that search engines monitor their own search engine result pages (SERPs) to determine such things as which results are getting the most clicks (it’s not always the top ones) and how long it is before the searcher returns to the SERPs to continue searching. Obviously if the fifth site on the list is getting more clicks, it’s probable that it appears to more closely match what the searcher is looking for than the ones above it. Furthermore, if the user stays on that site for an hour rather than five seconds it’s likely that they found what they were looking for and the SE will take these things into account.
There are perhaps a handful of individuals in the world who know the whole picture of how all of this happens and if they want to keep their high paying jobs at the major SEs, they’re not about to tell you or me. But it has led to a lot of speculation among SEOers. In fact the SEO industry has evolved into a world-wide phenomena with “professional SEO consultants” charging companies tens of thousand of dollars to “get their web site into the top 10″. Some SEOers are continuously dreaming up ways of tricking the engines without getting “sandboxed” (having the engine penalize a web site by dropping it’s rank). The SEs in turn regularly update and change the algorithms that they use to rank pages so that what worked yesterday in SEO may not apply today. The SEOers scramble to catch up and the continuous cycle of “algorithm chasing” continues.
SE’s employ some of the most brilliant mathematicians and computer scientists on the planet and the unfortunate truth is that SEOers will always be at least one step behind them. Next time someone tells you that they can guarantee you a spot in the “top ten” with the major search engines ask yourself this one question. “Are they trying to sell me something?” Then walk away.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not against SEO or anyone who does it. I fact, I firmly believe that a certain amount of optimization is vital to any online marketing effort, particularly at the outset of a campaign. It serves to give a site that little push in the right direction towards building traffic. But I caution anyone not to take it too far. It’s very easy to misplace too much emphasis on it.
So what do we do instead?
This one’s easy. Rather that playing the SEO numbers game with the SEs, we instead give them exactly what they’re looking for in the first place. If you recall from earlier, SEs are trying to learn from and indeed relying heavily on human behavior patterns to rate search results. The are on a mission to provide results and information that are highly relevant and real to searchers (in other words, human beings). So, provide information that is highly relevant to humans and the rest will fall into place naturally and organically. It may take a little longer, but the results will be worth it. Believe me!
Let me illustrate with a couple of examples
John decides that he would like to build a web site and make some money online. He builds a rather elaborately designed site and proceeds to optimize it to death. John’s been reading all about optimization strategies and he pulls out all the stops on this one. He has a page title that’s twenty-five words long (most of which have nothing to do with each other). He’s packed the text of his pages full of his favorite keywords to the point that they are nearly incomprehensible to a normal reader (but the search engines “love them”). He’s cross linked every page so many times that people are actually getting lost on his little 5 page site because they’re clicking on every second word which is underlined. But it doesn’t stop there. He then goes out and submits to every search engine and directory known to man regardless of locale of relevancy to his topic. He joins a few link exchanges and starts trading links with anyone who will reciprocate no matter how poor their site is. Maybe he even pays for a few “high rank links”. You get the idea. Before he knows it his site is showing up on the first page of the SERPs of all the major search engines and he’s sitting back patting himself on the back for a job well done.
Mary on the other hand comes up with and idea for an online business web site based on her area of expertise and after researching and identifying a niche in the market. She goes about building a nice simple cleanly designed web site that is logical an easy to use. She puts a lot of time and effort drawing on her experience and skills to write high quality content that is helpful to her visitors (or rather will be when she has some). After writing fifteen or twenty pages of original article content, she decides that she too should do some “optimizing”. At this point she’s realizes that the “on-page” SOE is already more or less done. Her keywords and key phrases (which she carefully researched from day one) are appearing naturally though out her articles, her page titles are reflective of the content of the pages, her headings are also aptly descriptive, and her pages navigate with function and simplicity. So, she moves on to the “off-page” optimization. She submits her site to the major search engines and directories. She then researches local and industry related directories and submits to them as well. Finally she identifies several well ranked important sites with in-demand content that is complimentary to her own and will be of use to her visitors (or rather will be when she has some). She drops a friendly e-mail to the owners of these sites outlining the possible benefits of a reciprocal link arrangement. Most, sadly, don’t reply but a couple of enlightened ones do. After reviewing her site they agree that it could be beneficial to their users as well and set up a link to her site. Mary spends the next several months occasionally checking her traffic stats, her rank in the search engines etc., but finds she is still way down on the SERPs if she’s on them at all. Not one to be discouraged though, she continues to churn out several solid articles a week and add them to her site.
Now remember John? He’s been sitting back riding the wave of initial success for the last few months. He’s even made a few sales. But then he starts to notice a disturbing trend. His site is slowly falling in the SERPs and his traffic is dropping off. People are visiting but they aren’t staying long and they’re certainly not buying anything. He also begins to notice that the large number of links he had pointing to his site are disappearing at an alarming rate. Try as he might, he just can’t seem to turn it around…
Mary’s spent the last few months patiently waiting for traffic and continuing to add excellent content to her site. And then it happens. First, a trickle of visitors come. She can see from her server logs that they are being referred from those well-chosen link partners she made agreements with. The search engines have also discovered those links and noticed the high quality sources that they are coming from. They represent a pretty good endorsement and the SE’s are starting to realize that Mary’s site must have something useful to offer. Consequently Mary’s rank starts to improve. Now people begin to find her in the SEs. Even though her site is still a page or two down in the SERPs people seem to like the description and they’re visiting. They’re also staying on her site for long periods of time reading all of her superb content, The search engines once again conclude (and quite rightly) from tracking this behavior that Mary’s site is worth even more rank. Finally the day comes when Mary find’s her site at the top of the SERPs for her chosen keywords and she has a large amount of targeted traffic coming in. She doesn’t quit though. She continues to create new and interesting content and her business continues to grow and prosper. Why? Because she continues to provide exactly what the SEs want. The same high quality content that human searchers are looking for.
…And where did things fall apart for poor John? Well, most of his “link exchange” partners suffered the same fate he did. The SEs noticed the irrelevancy of the links and dropped their weight to zero. His visitors coming in through his first page SERP placement where hitting the back button on their browsers as soon as they realized that John’s site was of absolutely no use to them (even if they could read it or figure out how to use it). Eventually people stopped clicking those links altogether. Additionally, one of the major SEs went through an algorithm change during that time period causing John’s site to lose some additional rank. Things just kind of slid downhill. Did John not work hard enough on his business? Actually in the beginning John worked very hard and the short-term results proved it. The problem is that he concentrated way too much of his effort in the wrong areas. In the long run instead of building a viable online business, all he ended up doing was playing a complex game of “chase the algorithm” with the SEs for a short time (and big surprise, he lost). Oh well, it was fun while it lasted…
I realize that the above examples are a bit of a simplification. But the bottom line is that as search engines become increasingly sophisticated and try harder than ever to deliver results that are real and relevant to humans, you can make your life and theirs much more lucrative by just giving them what they want from the start. Leave the math to the mathematicians and the tricky SEO to the SEOers and go about creating compelling content that humans and search engines alike will love.
Colin Plant is the owner of AtHomeBusinessNetwork.com a resource and community web site for people who have an interest in developing and running successful online home based businesses. He is also the principal of Concept Dynamics Interactive, a full service web design and multimedia firm.
http://www.AtHomeBusinessNetwork.com
http://www.conceptdynamics.ca
Written by SEO Tipster on February 26th, 2007 with no comments.
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If you don’t know already, one of the key success factors to getting loads of free Google traffic to your website is increasing page rank. So just how do you increase your page rank? Well, it’s all in the linking.To be honest I never could quite figure this Google thing out, how it ranks good sites from bad sites. One day it all clicked for me and its so simple when you look at it from Google’s point of view. Google keeps its customers by providing relevant sites to your search queries. How does it choose the best sites for what you are looking for? Well, first of all it needs to be relevant (key words) and secondly it needs to be useful and of high quality. One way Google knows to measure quality is by the amount of links referring to your site. It stands to reason a site referred to by 100 websites may be more useful than a site referred by just a few right?
So how can we increase our sites chances of shooting up the search engine rankings with incoming links?
The quality of the links you receive is very important. Choose websites that firstly are related and preferably with a higher page rank than your site. The higher the quality link the higher page rank you will receive. In other words getting a link from Amazon.com is going to be worth more than a link on your daughters home page.
Basically there are 3 types of links, Outbound links which are easily added to your site, Reciprocal links where site A links to site B and site B links back to site A, and finally inbound links. These inbound links are the most important of all.
Let me describe how to get links in order of their importance.
How to get incoming links
1. Write articles like this one. Choose a topic you know and write up a short 500 word articles with a link back to your website and post it to article directories. Not only are these one-way links but other websites will pick it up and post one way links on their websites. Google gives you a big tick for each one way link!
2. Viral marketing. Ask other website owners directly if they would like to post your article either on their website or include it as part of their newsletter. If it’s a good article chances are readers will in turn pass this on to other readers providing advertising for both you and the other Webmaster. Like a virus, it spreads to more and more readers who may post the article, providing more one-way links.
3. Post to forums related to your area and include a link in your signature file. It is critical to join in the discussion and not blatantly advertise, as this can look unprofessional and self-gratifying. Add value to the discussion and simply provide a link in your signature. Visit some forums and see who you would link to in the discussion and try and copy what they did right.
How to get reciprocal links
Ask Webmasters directly. These are a little easier to ask for as its clear you are providing them also with a link. Best to first link to their website, then personalize the contact commenting about something on their website specifically. I have found personally calling them if you have the contact phone number the best method. My friend David Newton at www.simplysolo.com has found this an invaluable way to gain in excess of 1,000 inbound links for his site. Simplified it should go like this:
a. Find a relevant site as a potential link partner. Tip ? Try entering this into google “your keyword or phrase” + “add url”. This will then list the most popular sites that will allow you to link back to them.
b. Firstly create a link to their website
c. Contact them directly showing them your link to them with url of their site and something you liked about their site, something unique. Compliments can only help here.
d. Schedule to follow them up in one months time and try again if necessary. Best to keep a spreadsheet
Of course not all sites will link to you and it’s a bit of a numbers game but you can get results. Its better to personalize your contact than mass e-mailing a general group of websites.
Don’t forget to always be polite and keep up a schedule where you will aim to get say ten or twenty links out there per week. You will then have quite a collection after a few months and traffic should start flowing to your site.
Greg Furey is the owner of The Affiliate Program Centre ? Resources and helpful tools for businesses and website owners to increase sale through affiliate marketing. http://www.affiliateprogramcentre.com
Written by SEO Tipster on February 22nd, 2007 with no comments.
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